Truly, Irredeemably Bad

I take this blog seriously. In it, I try to offer informed aggregation and commentary, and hope that I am never needlessly cruel or uncouth. However, in order to make the point that American politics has clearly entered a new phase in its embrace of the theatre of the absurd, I must depart somewhat from those guidelines.

This morning I was reading, as I always do, The Star's Vinay Menon. A very entertaining columnist, he writes with wit and verve, often capturing the absurdities of life. In his latest piece, he writes about Don Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara. (Yes, the same Lara who recently became co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and instituted loyalty oaths for prospective employees, thus making the Trump takeover and makeover of the Republican Party complete.) 

Not surprisingly for a family that cultivates delusional thinking, Ms. Trump now fancies herself a songstress, belting out tunes to promote her father-in-law's 'vision' for America.  I therefore offer two of them for your consideration, although I strongly advise listening only to a few seconds of each to confirm how execrably tuneless the woman is. (My wife threatened severe retribution if I played any more than that.)

Just one more thing: in clicking on the following, you are accepting the disclaimer that I cannot be held liable for any psychic or aural damage you may suffer from your exposure to Ms. Trump's stylings.

Just in case you think the woman was having a bad studio session, here is one more for your abbreviated consideration:

This Is Not A Parody

A little something for those Canadians who pine for the re-opening of the border to Amerika. 

Rarely have I seen such a sterling expression of commitment and leadership:

An Alternate Reality

With a pathological liar as its president, it probably does not come as a shock that many Americans live in an alternate reality. Promoted and cultivated endlessly by Donald Trump, their master, and spread wide by pernicious social media and house organs like Fox 'News' and One American News Network, it is a version of things that until recently would have been deemed credible only to the uneducated, cognitively challenged, or the completely unhinged. Sadly, many more appear to be regularly drinking from these poisoned waters.

Bruce Anderson writes:

Knowledge of the world seems to be deteriorating in America, abetted by a president—ignorant of the world himself—whose formula for political success depends on more people becoming less informed.

Despite all that has been responsibly reported about Russian interference, Trumpian malfeasance and his daily record of gross incompetence, a recent Abacus poll yielded some disheartening results:

If Trump loses, most Republican voters say they will believe the election was rigged. If he tries to stay in office after losing, they wouldn’t want the military to enforce the election results. In other words, their trust in or need for him is so powerful they don’t stop to think what sort of precedent it would set to leave the country in a state of impasse.

As many Americans think Russia is America’s best friend as think France, Italy or Germany is. This despite America having spent decades in a military alliance with France, Italy and Germany to protect against Russian military ambition, despite proven Russian use of cyberwarfare to disrupt American social peace and elections.

It would appear that those polled have little insight into their country's relations with the rest of the world:

Under Trump’s time in office, Republicans are four times more likely to say relations with Canada have improved (41 per cent), than think they have worsened (8 per cent). This is mindless partisanship—the facts of the last few years were almost constant tension around NAFTA, dairy subsidies, steel and aluminum tariffs, the idea of Canada as a security risk, the G7 Charlevoix summit friction. But for Republican voters everything seems to be going swimmingly.

Less than 12 per cent of Republican voters think U.S. relations have soured with Great Britain, France or Germany. This despite almost constant friction in these relationships, on topics from trade to NATO to climate change to refugee and immigration policy. Trump has by all accounts a terrible relationship with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. He was on bad terms with U.K. Conservative Prime Minister Teresa May and launched scathing attacks on London’s Mayor.

In a time when the world sees the U.S. for what it has become, 80 per cent of Republicans think Trump has made America greater.

Canada has good reason to worry about living next door to an unhinged giant:

Half of Republican voters would go along with abandoning NORAD, roughly a third would support building a wall and putting troops along the Canadian border. Happily, most Americans are against invading Canada to get at our resources. But stop and think about the fact that only 56 per cent of Americans strongly oppose the idea.

As children, almost all of us indulged in fantasies of one kind or another. It now appears that many Americans have entered a second, much darker childhood.

Let us not be in any hurry to reopen our borders to such a diseased nation.

A Saturday Night Special: On Friday Night News Dumps, Lamar Alexander's Shirts, And Other Weighty Matters

I love Rachel Maddow. Some of the reasons for my ardour are on display in the following video from her show. Enjoy.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From The Great Exporter Of Democracy

I guess free speech is something Republicans only value when they export their democratic principles.

Do What I Say, Not What I Do

For a country that seems to have a messianic zeal for exporting its freedom and democracy to other countries, the United States doesn't seem to care too much for those values domestically.

We Want To Make It Easy For You To Vote

Or at least some of you. Only in America, eh?

American 'Rocket Scientist' Pronounces on The Electric Car

[Sigh,] and some say this is the best the Republicans have to offer in the next election.

Republican Eric Cantor Concerned About Growing 'Mobs' On Wall Street

In a shameless but hardly surprising display of partisan hypocrisy, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) referred to the Occupy Wall Street protests as “growing mobs.”

Why is this hypocritical? Well it has something to do with his enthusiastic support of Tea Party protests back in 2009.

You can hear his almost 3:00 minute peroration here, and you will note that very few American platitudes are overlooked, including reference to American exceptionalism and what a giving and generous people Americans are. Few emptier speeches have I recently heard.

‘If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself’

So says Republican Presidential nomination hopeful Herman Cain. Expressing his disdain for the Occupy Wall Street movement, Cain seems at a loss to understand the anger people feel over the failure of the United States Federal Government to reign in the reckless practices of Wall Street, its thralldom to the corporate sector that cares nothing for environmental depredation, housing crises, financial meltdowns from which it is largely insulated due to taxpayer-funded bailouts, etc. etc.

When pressed by the host on whether the banks played a role in the 2008 meltdown, Cain allowed that they did "in 2008. But we're not in 2008, we're in 2011,"

Such incisive analysis by a Republican Presidential hopeful takes my breath away.